Short Fiction, Leonid Andreyev [good e books to read .TXT] 📗

such an original person, that he loved negresses, and to honour the occasion they ordered another half-dozen of beer, and began to look with a certain contempt on the neighbouring tables, at which there sat no original people. They began to talk louder and with more freedom, and Semyon Vasilyevich left off striking matches for his cigarette, but waited till the attendant offered him a light. When the beer was all drunk up, and they had ordered more, the stout Polzikov looked sternly at Semyon Vasilyevich, and said reproachfully:

“How is it, Mr. Kotel’nikov, that we have never got beyond the ‘you’ stage? Do not we serve in the same office? We must drink to Comradeship, since you are such an excellent fellow.”

“Certainly, I shall be delighted,” Semyon Vasilyevich consented. He beamed now with delight that at last they recognized and appreciated him, and then again feared somehow that they would thrash him; at all events he kept his arm across his breast, to be ready, in case of need, to protect his face and well-brushed hair. After Polzikov he drank to Comradeship with Troitzky and Novosyolov and the rest, and kissed them so heartily that his lips became swollen. Anton Ivanovich did not offer to drink to Comradeship, but politely remarked:

“When you are passing our way, please call. Although you love negresses, still I have daughters, and it will interest them to see you. So you are really in earnest?”

Semyon Vasilyevich bowed, and although he was a bit unsteady from the amount of beer he had drunk, still all remarked that his manners were good. When Anton Ivanovich went away they were still drinking, and afterwards went noisily, the whole company, on to the Nevsky, where they gave way to none, but made all give way to them. Semyon Vasilyevich walked in the middle, arm in arm with Troitzky and the sombre Polzikov, and explained to them:

“Nay, friend Kostya, you don’t understand the matter. In negresses there is something peculiar, something, so to speak, exotic.”

“And I don’t want to understand! They are black⁠—black⁠—nothing else.”

“Nay, friend Kostya, this is a matter requiring taste. Negresses are⁠—”

Until that day Semyon Vasilyevich had never even thought of negresses, and could not more exactly define what there was so desirable about them, so he repeated:

“My friend, they are ardent.”

“Now, then, Kostya, what are you quarrelling about?” angrily asked Troitzky, as he tripped up, and sploshed in a big swapped galoche. “You are a wonderful fellow for arguing; you never agree with anyone. Of course, he knows why he loves negresses. Drive on, Senya!7 love away! don’t listen to fools! You’re a brave fellow; we’ll get up a scandal before long. Lord! what a devil he is!”

“Black⁠—black⁠—nothing more,” Polzikov morosely insisted.

“Nay, Kostya, you don’t understand the matter,” Semyon Vasilyevich mildly declared; and so they went on, rolling and racketting, quarrelling, and jostling one another, but thoroughly contented.

At the end of a week the whole Department knew that the civil servant, Kotel’nikov, was very fond of negresses. By the end of a month the porters of the neighbouring houses, the petitioners, and the policeman on duty at the corner, knew it too. The ladies who worked the typewriters took to looking at Semyon Vasilyevich from the adjoining rooms; but he sat quiet and modest, and still was not sure whether he would be praised or thrashed. Already he had been at an evening party at Anton Ivanovich’s, had drunk tea with cherry jam upon a new damask tablecloth, and had explained that about negresses there was something exotic. The ladies looked confused, but the hostess’s daughter Nastenka, who had read novels, blinked her shortsighted eyes, and, adjusting her curls, asked:

“But, why?”

And all were very much pleased; but when the interesting guest had departed they spoke of him with the greatest compassion, and Nastenka him the victim of a pernicious passion.

Semyon Vasilyevich had been taken with Nastenka; but since he loved only negresses, he determined not to show his liking, and was cold and standoffish, though strictly polite. And all the way home he thought of negresses, how black and greasy and objectionable they were, and at the thought of kissing one of them, he felt a sort of heartburn, and was inclined to weep quietly and to write to his mother in the country to come to him. But in the night he overcame this attack of pusillanimity, and when he appeared at the office in the morning, by his whole appearance, by his red tie, and by the mysterious expression of his face, it was abundantly clear that this man was very fond indeed of negresses.

Soon after this, Anton Ivanovich, who took an interest in his fate, introduced him to a theatrical reporter; the reporter took him and treated him at a café-chantant, where he presented him to the Manager, Monsieur Jacques Ducquelau.

“Here is a gentleman,” said the reporter, as he brought forward the modestly bowing Semyon Vasilyevich, “here is a gentleman who is much enamoured of negresses; no one but negresses. He is an extraordinary original. Give him encouragement, Jacques Ivanovich, for of such people be not encouraged, who should be? This, Jacques Ivanovich, is a public matter.”

The reporter slapped Semyon Vasilyevich patronizingly on his narrow back, in its creaseless, tightly-fitting coat, and the Manager, a Frenchman, with a fierce black moustache, cast his eyes up to the sky, as though looking for something there, made a gesture of decision, and transfixing the still bowing civil servant with his black eyes, said:

“Negresses! Excellent! I have here at present three beautiful negresses.”

Semyon Vasilyevich blanched slightly, but M. Jacques was very fond of his own establishment, and took no notice. The reporter requested: “Give him a free ticket, Jacques Ivanovich; a season.”

From that evening Semyon Vasilyevich began to pay court to a negress, Miss Korraito, the whites of whose eyes were like saucers, with pupils no larger than sloes. And when she turned on all this battery and made eyes at him, his